Port Aransas South Jetty (Port Aransas, Tex.), Vol. 39, No. 42, Ed. 1 Thursday, October 15, 2009 Page: 1 of 18
eighteen pages : ill. ; page 23 x 14 in. Scanned from physical pages.View a full description of this newspaper.
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/700WESTAVE.A N
ARAMSAS, TEXAS 78373
2769 04--29-10 0069X00 i ?4P 338
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P 0 K I A R A NS A S IX 7 83 7 3 - 412 8
Pcct Aransas
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Vol. 39 No. 42 © 2009 Port Aransas South Jetty - All Rights Reserved USPS 946-020
750
THIS EDITION
Golfing for dollars
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• v ‘
Golfers played for a good
cause in the Kiwanis Club
Scholarship Golf Tournament
on Sunday, Oct. 11.
Page 1B
Perfect!
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H.G. Olsen Elementary
School students were
honored for perfect
attendance during the first six
weeks. Also see Honor Rolls.
Page 7A
Shark encounter
ft was a close encounter of a
^whale shark kind.
Page 11A
CLocacs©
WWW.PORTASOUTHJETTY.COM
Beach & Surf
conditions
www.portasouthjetty.com
Ferry wait times
'ill
Find out how long the wait
times are from both sides of
the ship channel at
www.portasouthjetty.com
Index
Church
Pastor’s pen.................
.......4A
Obituaries
• Grace Marie Leone ...
.......4A
• Jewel Fay S. Lamberth ....4A
• Norma Otterstetter .
.......7 A
Island Life
Columnists
• Tony Amos................
.......3B
• For the birds..............
.....11A
♦Island agenda.............
.......2A
Law enforcement .......
.......2B
Youth
Education notes..........
.......8A
School menus..............
.......8A
Sports
Cross-country............
.......3B
Opinion
Dave McNeely.............
.......3A
Todd Hunter...............
.......3A
Mary Henkel Judson....
.......3A
Outdoors
Fishing report.............
.....10A
Tides & Weather..........
.....10A
Classified
Classified ads..............
. 4B-6B
ISOUTH JETTY NEWSPAPER PLU#I
00000
09809
Huge fire torches hemes
Six homes burn to
ground; a seventh
a total loss in fire
at Private Marina
By Dan Parker
dan @ portasouthjetty.com
A wind-whipped fire destroyed six
houses and heavily damaged two others
on Friday, Oct. 9, in one of the largest
blazes in Port Aransas history.
The flames tore through a section of
the Private Marina neighborhood off
Channel View Drive before dawn, but
no injuries were reported. All of the
houses were vacation homes or second
residences that weren’t occupied at the
time of the fire, according to Scott Mack,
chief of the Port Aransas Volunteer Fire
Department.
The fire was reported about 3:10 a.m.
It took firefighters about three hours to
contain the massive blaze and seven to
eight hours to extinguish it, Mack said.
Firefighters didn’t leave the scene
until about 5:30 p.m. - more than 14
hours after the fire initially was reported
- and even after that, they had to return
three times to extinguish minor flare-ups,
Mack said.
This was not,
‘Get out your
hose.’ This was,
‘Get out.’
John Guthrie Ford
Resident, Private Marina
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A steady southerly wind of more than
20 mph, with gusts up to 35 mph, blew
the blaze from house to house. Neighbors
watched from atop their roofs as 20-foot
flames shot skyward, lighting up the night
sky with an orange glow that could be
seen from blocks away.
Some 75 to 80 firefighters in about
15 trucks converged on the scene as fire
departments from Corpus Christi, Port-
land, Rockport, Fulton, Lamar, Aransas
Pass and Ingleside poured into town to
assist the PAVFD.
Channel View Drive and Tarrant
Street, which runs parallel to Channel
View Drive, were closed to traffic at
Station Street as firefighters tried to keep
people away from the area of the fire.
Mack said the blaze started at one of
two neighboring houses on Private Road
D. He said he didn’t know which one
yet, and he said he didn’t know the cause
of the fire. The investigation has been
turned over to the state fire marshal’s
office, he said.
Port Aransas Fire Marshal Joe Lamb
said the cause of the fire likely was
an electrical problem involving an air
conditioning unit or an electrical panel
between two houses on Private Road
D. Stoked by the wind, the flames grew
quickly. Large embers blowing across an
adjacent boat canal ignited at least one
of the houses that ended up burning on
Private Road A.
The two houses on Private Road D and
four on Private Road A - the road that
runs along the edge of the Aransas Pass
ship channel - were destroyed.
Private roads A and D each ended up
with one heavily damaged structure. The
See ‘INFERNO,’ Page 6A
The fight, the finish
Top: Port Aransas firefighters,
Mark Young and Vinton James,
from atop a ladder truck, spray
the roaring flames coming
from homes burning in the Port
Aransas Private Marina early
Friday morning, Oct. 9. Right:
The fire is attacked from the
ground as the blaze continues.
Below: The aftermath from the
air. Private Road D is the one
at the bottom left,ending with
the charred remains of a home.
Private Road A is at the right
of the photo where what is left
of homes owned by the Edith
McAllister family, Watler Negley,
John Streiber, and Jack Scholl
and Alex Weil can be seen.
Staff photo by Dan Parker
...
YDEO
Staff photos by Dan Parker, above, Murray Judson, below
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Dallas area man victim
of hit-and-run Monday
By Dan Parker
dan @ portasoutfyetty.com
Port Aransas police are investigating
the death of a pedestrian who appar-
ently was struck by a car that left the
scene and didn’t return.
The man was identified by police as
Maxie Granados Jr., 60, of Red Oak, a
community near Dallas.
Police received a call at 7:37 a.m.
on Monday, Oct. 12, from a person re-
porting a man lying on the ground next
to the entrance to The Moorings, off
Island Moorings Parkway, according
to a Port Aransas Police Department
news release.
Police and EMS workers found
Granados dead at the scene. PAPD
Executive Lt. Darryl Johnson said the
man is believed to have been lying
there six to eight hours. His body was
lying slightly off the road and was
partially obscured by landscaping,
Johnson said.
Granados was visiting town on a
fishing trip, Johnson said. Two cousins
were with him.
See ‘HIT,’Page 3A
Farewell to arms
Intent is to prohibit shooting guns at preserve
By Dan Parker
dan @ portasouthjetty.com
Officials don’t want people firing guns
in the Port Aransas Nature Preserve at
Charlie’s Pasture, and city ordinances
might be tweaked soon to make sure
they’re clear.
The matter is expected to be considered
by the city council when it meets today,
Thursday, Oct. 15. The meeting will be at
5 p.m. at council chambers at city hall.
City code regulations approved by the
council in January lay out a number of
rules for the nature preserve, which was
then and still is in the process of being
developed as a preserve.
One part of the code says, “Wildlife is
protected within the nature preserve. It is
unlawful to injure or harm wildlife.”
Another part says, “Shooting into the
nature preserve from beyond its bound-
aries or discharging firearms within the
nature preserve is prohibited except as
allowed by state law.”
The Texas Parks and Wildlife Depart-
ment recently notified the city that those
two provisions seemed to contradict each
other and noted that the contradiction
should be eliminated with some sort of
rewrite.
The problematic phrase is “except as
allowed by state law,” said Dave Parsons,
the city’s planning and projects manager.
That language would appear to allow
hunting, Parsons said.
The language of the city code also
doesn’t prohibit people from going into
the preserve and doing target practice
with a gun. Parsons said. City staff is sug-
gesting that the language be changed so
that firing weapons would be completely
prohibited in the preserve in order to
avoid disturbing wildlife, he said.
Other matters expected to be on the
See CITY,’Page 3A
_
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Judson, Mary Henkel. Port Aransas South Jetty (Port Aransas, Tex.), Vol. 39, No. 42, Ed. 1 Thursday, October 15, 2009, newspaper, October 15, 2009; Port Aransas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth506058/m1/1/?q=%22Places%20-%20United%20States%20-%20Texas%20-%20Nueces%20County%22: accessed May 21, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Ellis Memorial Library.